
The House and Senate began negotiations Wednesday to reconcile differences between their fiscal year 2019 defense authorization bills, with lawmakers expecting to finish the process by July 27.The Senate voted 91-8 Tuesday evening to move to conference and start the process of deliberating its $716 billion version of the annual defense spending bill with the House, and settle differences including the number of new ships for the Navy and Air Force’s JSTARS replacement program.“The John S. McCain defense authorization bill…